SOME QUESTIONS ON THE HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY OF ARTSAKH (XVI-XVII CENTURIES)

Abstract

This article covers several issues related to the historical demography of Artsakh in the XVI-XVII centuries, based on the information from the primary sources. To this end, we have the tasks of classifying the historical-demographic information in the prima¬ry sources, analyzing their significance in the context of general demographic processes in Armenia, showing that in the XVI-XVII centuries, despite the unfavorable regional situation, migration activities of nomadic tribes were not significant within the territory of Artsakh, and the Armenian population maintained an absolute majority. Thus, the aim of the study is to cover some issues of the historical demography of Artsakh in the above-mentioned period, in the XVI-XVII centuries, which was done by means of combination of historical and historical-comparative methods. The information collected during the research was grouped into four types: references related to deportations and mass captives, data on the number of Armenians actually living in Armenia and number of family members, information on migration of foreign (particularly Kurdish) tribes, and lists of Armenian settlements. Finally, as a result of the study, it turned out that the cases of deportation and mass captivity of the population, in contrast to most of Armenia, were relatively few in Artsakh, which is due to the preservation of the Armenian royal ins¬titution of melikdoms. In addition, it turned out that the total population of the dioceses subject to the Catholicos of St. Etchmiadzin and Gandzasar may, with some reservations, be around 3.5 million people, which was too high a figure for the period under discussion. It turned out that the average number of Armenian family members in Artsakh exceeded the general index of Armenia. One of the possible conclusions of the research was that in the historical Tsar province (in Karvachar and in the northern part of Kashatagh), the Armenian population was predominant in the XVI-XVII centuries, which is evidenced by the existence of Armenian village lists dating back to the XVII-XVIII centuries.